Hi, Mark!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

ml>  i just wasn't sure of the proper pluralization form for 
ml>  "flu" and went with the more common usage of adding "es"...


           Ah.  I wasn't sure I'd ever seen it pluralized before, but I see no reason why it can't be.  Common usage varies from time to time & from place to place & YMMV.  When I get essentially the same answers from US + UK + Canadian sources I tend to regard the authors' findings as standard English.

           With words like "potato" & "octopus" the dictionary tells us how to pluralize them, and sometimes we do it by adding "-es".  If we add "-es" where it isn't needed, though, we may confuse other members of the audience....  :-Q




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+